Doom 2099 Issue 46 The Silk Road
by DoomScribe
Summary: Where is Vox?  Who is Khan? And will Doom and a SHIELD operative/cybog gone rogue be able to rescue the gypsy savant from a magician about to hold the world under his sinister thrall?  As if Doom would let anyone other than himself conquer the world!


**Doom 2099 UG, Issue 10 (#46)**

_Gypsy, Sorcerer, Scientist, King . . ._ The man the 20th century vilified and called Doctor Doom has traveled to the year 2099 where the superheroes who once thwarted his plans at world conquest are no more. But his once pristine country of Latveria has been reduced to an inhospitable pool of toxic sludge by a madman wielding unearthly powers. He must renew his home and his power from abroad, in the new world of the future and in the realm of computer cyberspace, all the while asserting his right to rule as . . . DOOM 2099 !

"The Silk Road"

"The first time I saw him was as a rookie agent fresh out of SHIELD academy. So many of the old bosses got booted out or worse during those first few days of the new regime, that there were virtual black holes in the upper ranks that needed filling. People were scrambling left and right, and the rookies were getting pulled out of the academy with their noses still dripping from wet nursing. It was an exciting time, volatile and earth shaking. No more black cards. Suddenly, justice had taken on a whole new meaning. And Doom was there in the midst of it all, marching through cadet review like a silver king on a holy quest. Even from the depths of the graduate parade, eight rows back, I could sense his drive, his inhuman focus, his presence."

"As it turned out, I was lucky to get on the wrong side of a battalion chief right before Herod wiped out the corps. Things were scary topside, another shift in the power. But I got demoted to the salt mines down below and missed the second coming. A good thing for my life, but my career longevity took a sudden down turn. For awhile there, we thought Doom was dead. Shock, half the world got wiped out between the gamma bomb and those nasty spiders spewing necrotoxins all over the world. It coulda been the end for all of us, the last gasp of humanity. Somehow, we hung on, the guard changed, and Doom blasted his way out of DC like a supernova and just as quickly disappeared. But I still remembered the short reign of President Doom. He was a hard one to forget."

"But, I'm getting ahead of myself. I guess introductions are in order. My name is Chance. At least, that's what everyone calls me. There's a paper somewhere that says my given name is Amity Chang. I guess I don't look much like a gook, but I'm typical American hodgepodge, little bit of everything. Mom was mostly black, I hear, but I never knew her. She took the high road when I was three, and good riddance. "Amity" means friend or some such sissy nonsense. Ever since I can remember though, even when I was a dirty little girl scuffling my way from one orphanage to the next, people have been calling me "Chance". Don't rightly know why, but the name kinda stuck."

"Yeah, these aren't real. I had some trouble shortly after coming to the big city and thinking I could conquer the world. That is a story all by itself, but I'll leave it for some other time. The first to go was the left arm. I was doing all my shooting-up in the left and the arm was feeling kinda numb anyway. I got decent creds for selling what was left of my, heh, "left" arm from a snake eyed organ-legger on Wall Street. I'm missing a kidney too, those were in high demand for awhile and mine was relatively healthy at the time. The lower right leg, well, I don't really remember much about that one, I was pretty bad off by then. Luckily, my time in SHIELD got me fitted with some first class replacement parts. These were some experimental cyborg paraphernalia at the time, right sweet hardware. Some of us rookies were guinea pigs for those SHIELD med lab doctors. I didn't really mind at the time, I was getting three squares a day and had been clean for the first time in six years. I woulda given my heart for the Corps if they'd asked me."

"Anyway, the second time I saw Doom, well, the balance of power had shifted somewhat. But you wouldn't know it to look at him. It was uncanny, the way those eyes could burn right through you like he knew what you were thinking. Shock, if he'd told me what color underwear I was wearing I wouldn't have been surprised. I almost saluted, almost called him "Mr. President". He still had that air about him. But, I'm jumping ahead. What really happened was this . . ."

Somewhere above Spain, early morning

When the Cicada became airborne, I knew something was up. I'd been monitoring all external action of PIXEL corp. for the last 3 months, and the entire operation was deader than the proverbial doornail. But Doom had stock in PIXEL, and sooner or later he was bound to show up there. Sure enough, my parlay played out. Followed that big blimp out over the Med, and kept low where the sky cycle would disappear against the sea. It wasn't but thirty minutes after becoming airborne that some fool took a nose dive off of the observation deck. From the way the chump was flailing and screaming, it certainly didn't look like a recreational dive. This was the break I needed, so I got underneath the jumper. By now I could see it was some guy in a long coat, and he was still conscious. That was good, cuz I didn't know if this little stunt was going to work, and he may have to lend an assist. I used the outer jets of the sky cycle to wrap him in an updraft air field. That cushioned him a bit as I matched his descent speed and then positioned the aft deck of the cycle underneath him. Still, he hit pretty hard, and I had to concentrate on the controls for awhile to adjust for the extra weight and turbulence of the air pocket I'd created. That got me thinking that it had been six months since the last PM [_Preventive Maintenance_] on my Air Gordy, and that this trick may be a lot more risky than I'd first thought. But I dropped into a deep dive and leveled off at a thousand feet. The cycle held together like a charm, and the drag on the left side let me know that my passenger was still on board.

I put the cycle on auto pilot and popped the hatch. I was taking no chances, so when I jumped down onto the rear quarter deck I had my shock gun drawn and loaded. The look on his face was priceless. He was spread eagle across the deck with a death grip on the left upright stabilizer. The deck wasn't meant for passengers, and that dive must've taken the last of the moxie out of him. As well as his lunch, which was spewed out over the deck. I made a mental note to make sure he cleaned that up. He didn't move, just lay there, breathing hard. It was then that I suddenly recognized him . . . Duke Stratosphere! What SHIELD wouldn't give if I brought this trouble maker home! I cocked the shock gun and aimed it at his head with one hand.

"Nice day for a free dive, Stratosphere," I said, "hope I didn't interrupt any short term plans you had."

To his credit, he actually grinned at that. "I hardly think you would pull my sorry ass out of the fire only to blow my brains out on the deck of your cycle," he said.

"Don't push your luck, Net Glider," I answered, "I'm fixed on a target that will hobble you better than cooking whatever grey matter is left in that cyber flying skull of yours." I moved the point of the gun meaningfully towards his crotch. "Besides, you put a dent in my bike! That means I gotta fill out reams of paperwork at SHIELD HQ, and I really hate that!"

He regained some of his composure then, and sat up on the deck. "You have my gratitude and my attention," he said, "but if I'm not mistaken, this flying rat trap you call a bike is hardly standard SHIELD issue, am I right?"

"That's none of your business! This flying rat trap just saved your hide, spud-boy! She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts!" I shouted. Two minutes on board and already this jerk was starting to piss me off. Just then an alarm from the cockpit caught my attention, and I tuned in the controls on my wrist pad. Proximity sensor, there was another ship . . . I looked up. We were still positioned beneath the Cicada, and a new ship was dropping out of her belly. It slid neatly out of the shadows of the big blimp, and I recognized it instantly as the Aspen Wing, Doom's newest personal transport vehicle. It was a silver triangle of sleek engineering and super powered ionic drive, full stealth capabilities and some nanotech googaws that were so classified they didn't even appear on my spec sheet much less on the open market. Damn thing probably had a built in espresso machine too. It engaged engines and moved quickly toward the east, flashing reflected sunlight off of brilliant wings. "Shock!" I yelled in frustration, there was no way I could keep up with that craft, unless . . .

I turned back to the glider. "You got one chance unless you want to continue your free fall, Stratosphere," I said with graven seriousness. "Tell me where that ship is going."

Duke watched the vessel disappear in the distance. "If I tell you, you'll let me live?"

"Yeah."

"And you'll drop me off at a safe port, not some prison or a SHIELD holding facility?" he continued.

"Dammit, you're wasting time! Just tell me where Doom is headed!"

"I just want to be clear on what my options are," Duke said. He was a cagey son of aglitch. "I've made some sour deals lately and you might say I've learned my lesson."

I watched the last blip of light where Doom's ship was disappearing on the horizon. Damn. So much for my brownie points, this deal better be worth it. "Yeah, yeah, safe port, no prison. But you better know where he's going or SHIELD warrant or no you're going down the hard way."

Duke smiled and winked. He really was a scoundrel. "Deal," he said.

Kashmir Province, dusk

Five hours and as many time zones later, I'm waiting for Doom at the base of the Shandur pass which leads straight into the heart of the Karakorum range. That's where Duke said the little magician Vox had been headed right before the rest of Latveria got melted by Herod's unholy machines. Assuming Duke's information was correct, and if I timed it right, Doom should be by here any second now. I don't know much about this kid Doom is searching for, but if he got this far then Doom may be lucky to find the little guy still alive. There're some dangerous people up in these high mountains, and they don't much take to strangers.

My little Air Gordy sky cycle is tricked out to fly pretty fast, I got some homemade modifications on her, but she's no near match for the speed of Doom's Wing. I beat him here by calling in some favors. That got me a flight path through Arabian restricted air space, and then I took my chances over independent Iran. Doom would probably have taken the safe route, even with his stealth technology, the ride is smoother swinging south over the gulf of Oman and straight up the western border of Pakistan. My route saved maybe an hour and a half. I can only hope it was enough.

As it was, I almost missed him. The Wing came in low and fast in full stealth mode through the deep mountain pass. This was disputed territory, so any intrusion would be viewed as hostile by the locals. They have a tendency to shoot first and ask later. I had parked the cycle under cover and put the engine on whisper mode as I waited. The computer alerted me when it picked up the engine noise from the Aspen Wing. I started to scan for visuals, but the Wing was so neatly camouflaged against the dark brown scrub and dirt I could barely see it even knowing where it was! Doom's ship employed some wicked refractory light trick to literally disappear into the background. If I hadn't been looking, I would have missed it. But soon as I scoped him I gunned the Gordy and was fast on his trail, staying back far enough to hopefully avoid detection.

Doom's craft was flying full out, pushing the envelope big time. Whoever was piloting that thing, he'd done his homework, that's for sure. He stayed low and out of sight of the anti-aircraft guns that lined the canyon walls. My own stealth mode wasn't as jagged as the Wing, but my cycle was a much smaller vehicle, and easy to miss. Still, keeping up with the Wing was plenty tough, and even though the cycle was plenty maneuverable, those turns were pulling some sick gees! I'd gone too far now though, I wasn't going to lose him! So I knuckled down and prayed to Hela that the Gordy would hold together.

We shot out of the pass like piss out of a drunken sailor. The canyon walls gave way to the high mountain country, virtual top of the world. The Himalayas scraped the ozone layer to the south, and beneath us was an inhospitable country of cold stone and jagged peaks. The Wing finally slowed enough for me to throttle down and give the sky cycle's whining engines a chance to cool down. I held back, and prayed that he hadn't seen me. But he held his course, and all indicators remained in the green. That gave me some time to check my maps, trying to figure out where he was headed as we followed the northern bank of the Indus River. Then it hit me! Khan! Of course! Duke had said that Vox was a magician, so it made sense that he'd want to look up one of his kind. I tapped into SHIELD security central via satellite to download all the intelligence they had on that old Wizard, as Doom's craft banked easily south, confirming my suspicions.

Khan was a strange old Chinaman who took his name from some prehistoric marauder of this area's ancient history, one Genghis Khan. He and his cult were holed up in this remote mountain country, and against all odds they manufactured one of the world's finest high speed computer chips. You've probably heard of it if you're a wire head, the Optimum Chip. But not much else was known about them. No one who entered their compound ever left there. It was more than a job, it was like some twen cen hippy commune cult thing. They seemed to get a slow but steady stream of new recruits who willingly left behind all of their worldly possessions to disappear from civilization, forever. Even some SHIELD operatives who'd been sent in for scouting purposes had turned up MIA. So the place was classified as hostile and hands off until some plan of action could be formulated. Which was going to be awhile, given the state of politics in the US now. Besides which, everyone wanted that chip! Wasn't good business to go shutting down the only place on the planet that made it.

Khan was one who valued his privacy. So much so that the entire valley was protected by an anti-aircraft and anti-personnel clear electronic energy shield the likes of which hasn't been recorded since the great refuge of Attilan in the mountains not far from here. It was the tightest no-fly zone this side of Halo City. The only known access was via ground transport through select guarded gates in the dome. Early SHIELD reports indicated that new recruits were required to dump all forms of hardware at the door and walk in. Harsh. My intelligence on the energy shield was up to date, because in true Fury-esque manner the tech boys at SHIELD HQ were monitoring the energy signature via satellite and hidden real-time camera mounts 24/7. Two days ago a multi-cell power failure had resulted in a breach in the northern leg of the shield. Doom must have had some intelligence on that breach, because it looked like his ship was headed straight for it. But my latest report downloading on my nav screen indicated that the breach had been repaired this morning!

I lay on the throttle and started to close the distance between me and the Wing. The energy dome had a weak signature, just enough to keep the curious at bay, but a breach the size of the one that was there up until this morning may not show up on local telemetry. The dome isn't really visible until you get right up close, and the big Wing was headed into the breach on faith alone! At this speed, as soon as he hits the zone . . . where the break would have been yesterday …disintegration city! Man oh man now what the shock am I supposed to do? The Wing was skimming above the river plain between two mountains at about 200 mph, there was no time for indecision. I hit the afterburners on little Gordy, a rocket set that gave me about a twenty second burst of speed. That was just enough to catch up to the Wing and pass it by. The energy shield was just ahead, too close! Out of the corner of my eye I could see Doom in the cockpit of the Wing as I passed it, and I knew that he saw me. A set of guns on the Wing swiveled instantly in my direction.

There was no time to try to communicate, only one thing to do. I cut across the path of the Wing, forcing him away from the energy dome. Banking the Gordy as hard as I could, I forced the Wing to turn with her. We would have made it too, but I was closer to the dome than I had figured! Then everything happened fast. The left stabilizer hit the energy dome and melted instantly. That forced the cycle right, and with less than ten feet between the two ships, I clipped the left side of the Wing. Then I started spinning madly, while the Wing's left engine burst into flames and she went plummeting towards the earth. I would have bought it then and there if the auto eject hadn't kicked in. Off I went into the air, hoping for the first instant that the Gordy was right side up when the hatch blew. Then everything went black.

I was floating in the chair when I came to, only a few seconds later. We had been flying pretty low, and the ground was coming up fast. I braced myself, but still the impact jarred my teeth as I hit. I bounced and slid as the chute dragged me and the chair up the side of the hill, then finally stopped with me on my back. At least I was alive. Then I got a sense of where I was, and how shocking cold it was! I quickly unhitched myself from the chair and grabbed my flight jacket and whatever survival gear I'd packed in the seat compartments. Not much. At least I had my shock gun. The sun had already disappeared behind the mountains, soon it would be getting lots colder. This was definitely crunch time.

As I stood up, I saw the sparkle in the horizon ahead of me. That was the energy shield. Shock, it was close! I was lucky that the wind didn't carry me into it! I climbed the hill quickly, looking for some sign of the Gordy or Doom's ship. In the dim light I could see a blackened frame still smoldering alongside the river. It was too small to be the Wing, must be what was left of my cycle after passing through the shield. Damn, I was going to miss that little bike. I tried not to think about how close I'd been to getting cooked, too. Then I saw the deep gouge in the earth below me, strewn with silver wreckage. I ran down to the path and followed it around another rocky hill. There was no smoke, so maybe . . . The Wing was beat up pretty bad but it looked like the fuselage was intact! As I walked up to the crash site, I didn't expect to find anyone alive. Then again, I didn't know exactly what to expect. And for a moment, I wondered if I knew what I was doing. The side door was ajar, I pushed it open with the muzzle of the shock gun and eased my way into the wreckage.

That's when I saw him. Like I said, I felt this need to salute, even though he was lying on his back with a huge chunk of bulkhead pinning his left arm to the ground and the remains of the cockpit scrunched up around him. I couldn't tell right away if he was hurt bad, or at all. That armor, it might have saved his life, but I wasn't sure about the arm. Then I could see that he was conscious, and he knew I was there.

Those red eyes turned towards me, and glowed in the darkness of the wreckage. "You have three seconds to shoot me before I free this arm," he said with calm fortitude.

Then I realized I still had the gun drawn, instinctively pointed at him. "Oh, uh, sorry!" I said, lamely. I holstered the weapon, and moved to start to lift some of the debris off of him. "Here, let me help you."

"No need," he said calmly. Suddenly his arm began to appear, ghostlike, through the bulkhead! He pushed himself away from the rest of the wreckage, and stood whole and apparently unharmed in the mangled cabin. Phasing power! I remembered it was one of the features of his armor. "Your intent then I take it, wasn't to kill me." he asked, but it wasn't really a question. That mask was as cold as the snow covered mountains outside.

It was the moment of truth, now what do I say? So I introduced myself hastily, and told him the truth, or parts of it, of the energy shield and how I knew that it had been repaired, and there was no time to warn him. I left out what I needed to leave out for now, and ended with, "I was on my way to enter Khan's clan," I lied, "I guess with my cycle gone that's one less piece of hardware I have to forfeit at the gate." I added a short little laugh, but my clever lie was wasted on Doom.

"It appears that I am in your debt," he said. I guess that was his way of saying 'thanks'. "But you do not truly expect me to believe that you followed me from Pakistan just to join some mindless religious cult," he added with a knowing tone.

"Um, well, . . . say, is your pilot alright?" I started moving debris to see if I could locate any other bodies.

"There is no one else here," Doom stated. I was about to candidly praise his piloting skills, both at navigating through the pass and at landing the battered Wing in one piece, when he grabbed my arm. His grip was like an iron vise, and my cyborg systems whined in protest. "Why were you following me? Answer now, girl, you've managed to destroy my plane and my patience is not far behind!"

"Hey!" I yelled indignantly, "you're hurting me! I just saved your life, ya know!"

"Hurting? Hmmm . . . I doubt that," he gripped harder, and ripped the seam of my flight jacket, exposing my arm, and the circuitry underneath. "Cyborg," he spat the word with undisguised distaste. "I have a particularly deep-seated aversion to cyborgs of this era," he finished acidly.

I pulled my arm away from him and leveled my shock gun back in his face. "Look mister former President, it ain't much worse than having micro machines in your bloodstream or a thousand creds a day chain habit," I shouted, fighting back the tears. "So just hold off on your holier than thou judgment 'cause if you haven't walked in my shoes you can't play my tunes!"

Faster than I could have stopped him, even if I had meant to pull the trigger, he snatched the gun right out of my hand. That didn't mean I was totally disarmed, but a fight wasn't what I was looking for. I held my position with forced bravery. "That's twice that you've pointed this gun in my face, and neither time did you mean it," he scolded me. I lowered my eyes, ashamed. "A particularly annoying trait you Americans seem to have. Pity. Think of how much farther you could have gone with a little more backbone."

I wanted to say, "Well, I don't see you sitting on the American throne anymore," but my mouth had a tendency to get me in trouble so I kept it shut.

"This is SHIELD issued ordinance, as are your cyborg parts," he said with uncanny insight. I watched the green silk of his cloak as he turned his back to me and walked a few steps away, examining the gun. My heart skipped a beat as I now thought he would probably shoot me. "Did Herod send you? The truth girl, I will know if you are lying."

"No," I answered. It was the truth.

He turned to look at me again, and all I could see were the red eyepieces glowing in his mask, shadowed within the hood of his cape. The cold wind outside whistled down from the mountains with the descending darkness, penetrating the wrecked fuselage of the ship and testing my resolve. I swallowed, but my throat was dry.

"Who are you working for then? Alchemax? Angel's Breath?"

"No, none of them . . . I mean, I'm a free agent," I stammered nervously.

"Not with this kind of hardware you aren't," he aimed the shock gun my way.

I wasn't afraid to die, but I didn't want it to end this way, unfinished. I started to spill, hoping at least some of the real truth would win his trust. "Look, I was in SHIELD, I admit it. I was one of the first of the new corps. I took an oath, to you, and to Jake Gallows. Not to Stark-Fujikawa or any of those other megacorps. I believed in your vision, I believed in the new justice. But since you left, things aren't so clear anymore. I got shuffled around from one unit to the next, 'till I didn't know whose agenda I was serving. I'd had enough. I took the first overseas duty assignment I could lay my hands on, just to give me time to sort it out."

"You are not a very good spy," he said, but his tone was sympathetic. He finally lowered the weapon. "Or an assassin for that matter."

"I am neither. I'm nothing more than a cop with some fancy hardware. But there are assassins out there, dozens maybe, looking for you, under contract with Stark-Fuji. You're still a threat to them, and they don't like that," I explained. "But my job was simple surveillance, leg work for the hired guns. I wasn't supposed to engage, but . . ." I didn't know if he was buying this or not. Shock, I didn't know if I was. "I want to . . . to defect. I want to work for you. That's why I followed you here."

"I'm not hiring right now," Doom replied with cool alienation. "I don't have the time to coddle a green soldier through this mission."

"You won't have to watch out for me, I can take care of myself," I said, pleading. "Look, even if you don't need me, I still have some information you could use. I downloaded all the information in the SHIELD files on this Khan. If you want to find Vox, you'll need it. Here . . ." I ejected the disk I recorded earlier from the drive socket in my arm and handed it to him. He examined the disk skeptically. "I won't get in your way, I swear it!"

He still seemed unimpressed. "This is innocuous data at best, Miss Chance," he intoned deeply. "You could dissuade my doubts further if you could provide me with the strength of Stark-Fuji forces along the Pacific Rim."

"I . . . I don't have access to that kind of data," I stammered nervously. "Besides, my bike is toast. All of my uplink sites are toast until I can re-up my links with HQ."

"Perhaps we can test the true depth of your loyalties at a later date, then. For now, I will accept that there is a glimmer of truth to your story," Doom mused calmly. He tossed the shock gun into the back of the plane. "You won't be needing that where we're going," he instructed before I could protest. "They'll only take it away from you anyway. Leave your helmet, and any other weapons as well as any identification you have."

I removed my helmet and tossed it in the corner, brushing a few wild strands of curly black hair nervously out of my eyes. "I hope you don't want me to leave my appliances too?" I asked, referring to my cyborg parts.

"No, those can be explained," Doom answered, "Let's just hope that Khan and his followers are not complete techno-phobes. You won't be much use to me on crutches."

"What about your armor?"

"I have a way of disguising it," Doom grabbed a small device from a broken locker in his ship, and attached it to his belt. He flipped a few switches on what appeared to be a dead control panel on the ship, and a single small red light began blinking.

"What's that? A self-destruct?" I asked as he ushered me out of the door.

"Hardly," he explained arrogantly. "Nanites will begin the self-repair protocols while we're gone. With plenty of raw materials in this valley, they should have the ship repaired and rebuilt by the time we return."

"Neat trick," I said. My amazement was genuine, but looking at the trashed ship I remained silently skeptical. We stepped out into the now complete darkness of this bleak, desolate valley. Only the shimmering of the energy shield gave any indication of the presence of civilization. I guess Khan's security forces were either confident in their energy barrier, or were used to having the odd craft slam into it now and again. Or maybe a little of both. No one had come to investigate the crash, and the world around us was cold and still.

"How do you plan on getting us in?" I asked.

"There was a caravan of Khan's followers headed for the compound on the valley road just the other side of this ridge," he explained. "My jet pack will be able to fly us both to the top of the ridge, then we'll have to walk down to avoid detection. You will have to find an appropriate disguise in the camp, and then we'll walk in with the rest of the sheep."

"And then . . . ?"

He turned to back to me with a meaningful stare. The starlight flickered off of his silver armor glove, and the finger that was pointing my way. "Then we'll find out if the intelligence gathered by the SHIELD worms is worth hobbling myself with you for the remainder of this excursion!"

I gulped nervously. It was going to be a long, cold night.

The Silicon Road, morning

I had spent the last two hours listening to some former megacorp techie expound upon the greater wisdom of Khan's regime and philosophy as we climbed the last few miles towards the city. The scary thing was, he had actually bought this hocus pocus garbage. We had been walking since first light, and at 12,000 feet I could feel the thinness of the air, and my lungs were grateful for the slow pace, but it was small consolation for having to hear this retread spew the sum total of his pathetic life the entire way! Back when the Mongols were raiding and trading with the civilization to the west this route was known as the Silk Road. Now it was called the Silicon Road, because Khan had revitalized the area with the sale of computer parts. The techie really idolized the old wizard, like he was some earthly god descended from heaven to save their souls. I just hummed along, agreeing with his every word as I only half listened. No one questioned that two new members had joined them in the middle of the night. I'd lifted a heavy cloak and some boots and mittens made from some kind of animal skin. They were thick and heavy and smelled a little, but they were deliciously warm, and I blended right in with the rest of the raggedy troop. Doom was silent where he walked beside me. That device on his belt had transformed his cloak from the shimmering green of royalty into a dull, dirty olive. The rest of his armor disappeared under the guise of a dark shirt and pants. His face was hidden within his hood, but the mask had taken the shape of a human face. The device was a holographic generator, he explained, it would disguise him until we got into the compound. Finally, the humongous gates of the city loomed menacingly in the distance ahead of us.

When we reached the gates at the entrance to the energy shield, the acolytes were instructed to form a single file line. I could see only a few guards there, and I wondered if Doom was planning anything, but he just moved into line silently with the rest. The guards were big, huge actually, and their dark eyes scanned the crowd beneath thick brows of black hair and dense beards. I imagined that they were what the Mongol raiders must have looked like centuries ago, on growth enhancers that is. Ahead of us, all weapons and any tech gear was getting stripped from the new disciples and piled into a heap by the guard shack. Then there was some guy running a circuit detector, looking for anything else someone might try to smuggle in. One guy was plugged into a handheld game pad, and he whimpered a little when the guard took it away. I started to get worried, and began looking for an escape route when I felt a heavy hand on my shoulder, keeping me in line. I looked back at Doom, and he just gestured forward. How he kept so cool, I couldn't figure. Hard to imagine a world leader as being skilled in the front line of espionage. I'd had training on this stuff and I was freaking out.

When the scanner ran over me, it went off like Christmas lights at an uptown department store! One of the guards was instantly at my elbow. Off came the cloak and I rolled up my sleeve to show him the titanium and kevlar skin that made up my left arm.

"Cyborg," he said with distaste. I was really getting tired of that reaction, until I saw the look on the face of the techie who had been bothering me all morning. His eyes went wide and his face white, and rather than wait for me, he grabbed his gear and headed on into the city. Maybe it wasn't so bad after all. I was forced to look back at the guard as he slapped a tracking device on my arm and locked it in place. "Report to the science registry today at noon for testing and clearance to the city," he instructed harshly. "Failure to have the wrist lock deactivated will result in limb implosion. No exceptions."

Great. I grabbed my cloak and directions to the science registry. Then looked back. How Doom had escaped detection with all that armor he wore, I never could figure, but there he was right behind me. Silently he pointed towards a path and we continued unhindered into the city.

We'd lost most of the acolytes that we'd come with, probably scared of the "cyborg", so we walked alone through the outer city walls into the residential ring. The city was a series of rings and walls, each demarcating a separate layer of the populace, with each progressive layer in being more prosperous than the one outside of it. We were headed for the center, the brilliant hub of the city where the temple of Khan lifted gleaming towers towards the heavens. But here on the outermost ring, people lived on the earth crammed into mud huts or lean-to shacks that were primitive two thousand years ago. Further into the city, conditions weren't so harsh, but you had to walk through the slums to get there. The poor and neglected turned to us in the street as we passed by, with longing and perhaps an unspoken warning on their lips. Their faces haunted me, their eyes vacant and staring as they sat on straw mats in the streets, hands out and begging for a scrap of food. Others smoked hashish in pipes, or beat with their palms incessantly on the barren earth, or writhed in silent agony in dirty gutters. Their faces were mad, frightening, the skin hanging off of their bones in empty folds of flesh. Not much further down the street, and I was forced to stop. I recognized one of those vacant faces staring up at me from an open doorway.

I gasped uncontrollably. I had seen his face in the hall of heroes at SHIELD HQ many times in the past, a proud, brilliant, and respected soldier. Missing in action was what the memorial said. I had often passed it on the way to classes, and became familiar with that noble countenance, greeting me each day like an old, familiar friend. And here he was in person, Commander Karajan, his once youthful visage now looked about a hundred years old. His noble chin was streaked with drool, his strong handsome eyes, were blank and staring. His hair was matted and white, with clumps of it missing under a splotchy red scalp. He was drugged perhaps, or wounded somehow. I started towards him instinctively, and a strong arm pulled me back.

"But . . ." I cried.

"Leave him," Doom whispered firmly. "It's too late for him."

I struggled a bit, but Doom pushed me forward again. I looked back. "What could have happened to such a man?" I thought, then, "Who could have done such a thing?" I looked toward the towers of Khan, and a new revulsion began to grow in my heart. That and more than a little fear. If a skilled soldier like Karajan had been trapped here, how would we ever escape with our lives? Doom marched on ahead, his gait steady and determined. There was no turning back now. I was just beginning to comprehend how hard it was to follow someone who never wavered from attaining that which he sought.

**The Tower.**

The next morning, I made my way through the city streets toward the tower of Khan.

Getting my cyber ware checked out by the science geeks had turned out to be a piece of cake. But they fitted me with a new bracelet and let me know that I had to return three times a week for "treatment". I didn't like the sound of that. After that, food and lodging was a snap, since no one accepted any kind of payment. No one questioned us about our intentions either. I guess they figured we weren't going anywhere. "Praise Khan", the innkeeper said, and showed us a small but warm room with a fire and a corner shrine to Khan. There was a small tray of incense, a few fresh flowers and fruit, all laid out below a faded painting of Khan, a stern faced Asian with long black hair and a wispy little beard. That portrait was everywhere in the city, as if every conscious moment was devoted to Khan! Or maybe, watched over by him. Meanwhile, Doom had disappeared, apparently to do some kind of reconnaissance. I didn't suspect it would be easy to find one little boy in this concentrated mass of humanity, although I hadn't seen any other children since we got here. Maybe they were all in day care. Anyway, the inner circle must have been too much for him to tackle on his own, because he sent word for me to meet him. I had to admit, I had been afraid that he was going to ditch me here.

Except for the people on the outer rim, folks seemed to be pretty content. "Praise Khan," they said, bowing as they passed in the streets. No one stopped you from crossing from one boundary of the city to the next until you got to the inner circle. There, only Khan and his chosen ones were allowed. Waiting near that wall is where I first saw one of the "chosen ones", parading through the street, barefoot in her golden robes, followed by a train of shaven headed monks and boys waving orbs filled with thick incense that made me feel dizzy. She smiled as she slowly paced past the crowd, sprinkling flower petals from a small basket on her arm. People around me clasped their hands and bowed in reverence, breathing deep of the sickly sweet smoke that wafted over them. "Praise Khan," they'd moan. Then the parade was over and folks would go back to work, with those insipid smiles on their faces.

"Don't breathe the smoke," Doom warned me in a whisper, pulling me away from the crowd.

"It makes my head spin," I answered quietly. "Like cheap chain." I recalled my days in the sewers of Downtown with distaste, as I brushed flower petals from my cloak.

"It's drugged," Doom explained.

"You mean to say they're all drugged?" I asked.

"Partially," he answered, "but it's more than that. There are some strange emanations of extremely low frequency coming from the Tower," he continued quietly. "I believe that Khan may be using some form of hypnotic suggestion to keep the populace in his thrall, working in combination with a steady dose of mind weakening drugs. It is an insidious if not highly effective method to control the masses."

"You sound like you admire him," I said, mildly surprised.

"I admire his results," Doom answered without compunction. "These people are happy, they're productive, and in return, they're well cared for. There is no crime, no disease to speak of, and no wars in a region destroyed by centuries of warfare. He has created the living embodiment of this century's Shangri-La."

"Except for the poor slobs on the outer rim," I countered angrily. "Where's their slice of paradise?"

"I suspect that after years of being exposed to these drugs, that there is an irreversible toll on the body's central nervous system," Doom explained rationally. "Once that happens, the people are no longer productive members of the community and are dealt with accordingly. That is why Khan needs a steady stream of new converts."

"Too bad for them," I said with disgust. "So those who have outlived their usefulness are abandoned to the outside to make do on their own."

Doom looked at me with stern candor. "It is the same in every society, Chance," he stated, "only it is more obvious here because of the extreme social stratification." He moved down one side street parallel to the inner wall. "Unless you want to join them, I would refrain from eating or drinking anything. There are traces of the drugs in the food and water also."

"Oh, great, so much for breakfast," I moaned. "So how come we're not affected?"

"I suspect in time, we would be," Doom examined the wall before us as he spoke. "I however, refuse to be enslaved by such primitive mind control," he boasted nonchalantly, "while the cyber-neuro interface that allows you to have artificial limbs may in some way interfere with the receptor sites needed for the drug to work effectively. Hence the requirement for weekly medical treatments."

"Gah," I said with disgust. "Bag the free medical plan!" He placed a hand on the wall and was silent for a moment. "What are you doing?"

"Shhh . . ." he said. I shusshed, and kept a nervous eye out either direction down the deserted alley. "This is the place," he announced finally, "Vox is here."

"How do you know?" I whispered.

"I can sense it, a . . . magical essence, a signature, faint," he admitted, "too faint. If the boy has been harmed . . ." He didn't finish, but his clenched fist said enough. He reached to his belt to turn off his imaging device. The plain man he had disguised himself as disappeared. The cloak brightened, became once again a rich, royal green. His armor shined in the high mountain sunlight, gleaming gloves and boots, bright chest plate, and red eyed silvery mask.

"Don't you think we should wait until darkness?" I asked sheepishly.

"No time like the present, Chance. Give me your arm," he ordered. He took my hand firmly in his glove. It started to feel tingly, and then I felt a strange sensation wash over my body.

"How are we getting in?" I asked. The wall was easily forty feet high.

"Trust me, and hold your breath." was his calm answer. Then I noticed him moving through the wall, pulling me with him!

"Wha . . . !" I screamed as suddenly I was passing through the block and mortar. It was something akin to swimming, and then just as I wondered if I would be trapped there I was on the other side ". . . the shock!" I finished, and he let go of my hand. The tingling stopped, and I hurriedly checked to see if all my parts were still there.

I should have checked to see if I'd left my sanity behind me. What had looked like a normal cityscape on the other side, took on fantastical dimensions and colors once we crossed the boundary between them. The sky was now a reddish pink with turquoise clouds. In front of us was a colossal temple, with walls that shimmered, as if made of smoke. The temperature had risen at least forty degrees, and as I quickly shed my heavy coat I tried to gather my senses. Me and Doom seemed real enough, but the rest of this . . . this was totally whack! Only the wall behind us was comfortingly normal. I leaned against it and stared at the tumbling sky above, suddenly feeling dizzy and nauseous.

"Tell me this is something from those drugs I inhaled," I said quietly.

"The landscape is purposefully disconcerting," Doom understated blithely, "try not to let it destroy your focus. Khan is using a powerful magic to surround himself in this place, nothing you have learned before will aid you here. Trust your instincts, but know that your external senses will deceive you. We will have to be cautious; any step could be your last."

"A comforting thought," I mumbled. Indeed, the ground still seemed solid enough. "Where do we go from here?"

"To the temple. Try not to get separated," Doom said calmly.

"I can deal with that."

"We may have only seconds before our presence is detected," he added. "Expect resistance at every turn. I take it that your cyborg parts are equipped with additional weaponry?"

Finally, he was talking my kind of language. I held up my arm and popped a single double-edged stiletto blade out of my forearm that extended beyond my fist. "You better believe it," I said with a wicked grin.

"Hmmm . . ." he stared at the blade with something akin to recognition, like he wasn't that impressed. "Very well, this way then." He turned and led towards the temple up a flight of stairs that seemed to float in the air.

We hadn't gone ten feet when I noticed this huge black bird circling above us. It cawed down at us as we ascended the steps to the temple. I had a bad feeling about it, as it followed us to the entrance of the temple. Doom might have looked back once at the bird, but he pointedly ignored it. He stepped into the threshold between two marble columns, and out of the corner of my eye I saw the bird swoop down after him.

"Doom! Look out!" I yelled, certain there was something not right about that bird. Then Doom and the bird disappeared behind a curtain that dropped down in front of me, separating us. I sliced at the curtain with my shiv, but there was a solid block wall behind it! "Hey!" I yelled. The wall seemed to cover the entire entrance to the temple. I wasn't going to be allowed in! I stepped back to see if there was another way in . . . and started falling! The stairs behind me had disappeared, and I was falling through a narrow tunnel that descended into darkness. Instinctively I plunged my knife arm into the sides of the rock tunnel, hoping to slow down. Instead, what looked like solid rock shredded like paper, and I found myself tumbling through it into an underground room.

I shook off the paper that had wrapped me up and stood with frustrated disgust in what looked like a dungeon of some sort. The tunnel I thought I had been falling through had disappeared. I touched the rock wall behind me. It was solid. I was standing in a corridor, dark and musty, with torches on the wall. The hall was deserted. Which way to go? And, was this real or another illusion? Having my mind messed with only made me angrier. I grabbed a torch and picked a direction, my footsteps echoing loudly against the stone floor.

I was worried if I would ever find Doom, or if I'd ever find my way out, when I found Andrei. Well, he sort of found me. Except he was locked up and I was on the outside. He saw me as I wandered past a block of the iron cells that were empty except for his, and he called out from behind the prison bars.

"Stop, please!" he shouted. "You're not one of them! Are you from the outside?"

I turned to him cautiously. He was a big man, older, but strong looking. He didn't look like one of Khan's disciples. "Yeah," I said cautiously. "What of it?"

"I have to get word out, please!" Andrei pressed close to the bars. "I have to get a message to Doom if he's still alive!"

"Doom? Doom is here! He was with me, but we got separated," I shined the torch light in his face. This had better not be one of Khan's magic tricks again.

"Doom is here? Then we have to warn him, we must save Vox from Khan! Quickly! Get me out!"

I hesitated a bit, until he told me who he was, and how he had accompanied Vox here from Latveria and been captured by Khan's forces. So using the knife blade in my arm, I easily picked the lock of his ancient prison. But ancient or not, there was some kind of alarm built in, because no sooner did Andrei step out of that prison than a dozen Mongolian guards armed with swords and spears came charging down the corridor at us. Andrei grabbed the torch and started swinging it like a club. He laid into them like a mad dog, howling and cursing as he fought. I used the knife in my arm to cut through a few more, punctuated with short electrical blasts that were persuasive from a distance, but I had to use them sparingly. My right side kick was exceptionally effective too, especially when I used the "blade" attachments in my foot. Andrei and I fought back to back for what seemed like an eternity but was probably only a few minutes, until bloody and wheezing, we were the only ones left standing.

"This way," Andrei stated breathlessly, tossing away his broken club. He ran off down one corridor, with me fast on his heels.

"You know where you're going?" I asked, with some skepticism.

"Yes, we must free Vox. Last I saw, he was being held in Khan's temple," he answered.

"What's so special about this boy anyway?"

Andrei was quiet for a moment as he stopped to look down an intersecting corridor. "He is the future of our tribe, the one who will show us the way out of the darkness," he said with honest reverence.

"What about Doom? I thought Doom was taking charge of the gypsies," I said.

"Pfah!" Andrei snorted with disgust. "Doom is a politician. He has broken with the gypsy way, he wants only power for himself. He thinks nothing of mother Latveria other than a stepping stone for future glory." He gestured, "Come, this way is clear."

I hurried after him. "Well, I don't know how long you've been gone, but Latveria was necrotoxified. That country won't be a launching pad for anyone's power plays for a long time."

Andrei stopped, his face went white. Now I felt bad, I sorta thought that he knew.

"Doom did this?" he asked.

"Some guy named Herod," I told him. "Look I'm sorry, I thought you knew . . ."

"And Fortune? Did she escape?" His face was intensely serious.

I shook my head no. "I don't know, the reports said that nobody got out alive."

"Ah, if anyone could escape, then Fortune would have," he said with forced confidence, "she would have seen the gypsies to safety." He turned into a narrow passage that led up to a stone stairway. "Shh, this way."

There was a guard at the top of the stairs, but he had his back to us. Andrei slipped in behind him and wedged a thick arm around his throat, pulling him back down the stairs where I was waiting with a quick stab to the temple. Whatever magics had plagued me earlier had disappeared, or perhaps Khan was busy with other things. That last was about to be confirmed, as we looked out onto the temple floor from a viewing gallery twenty feet above the main floor. There was a massive central dias upon which a glowing golden statue of Khan, forty feet high, looked out with raised arms. Beside it were two elaborately carved basins filled with an unearthly orange fire. Next to this altar was a large golden cage, suspended off the ground with a chain like a bird cage. Inside the cage, sitting cross legged with the most serene expression I'd ever seen, was a small boy in a large coat. As I looked, I saw that he wasn't exactly sitting . . . he was floating!

"Vox is there," Andrei pointed to the cage.

"Where is Doom?" I whispered. No sooner had I said that than a rumble from directly below us drew our attention. One of the "chosen ones" came tumbling out onto the wide temple floor, bloody and torn, as if he'd been thrown. A dozen more of Khan's disciples came rushing in, backing away from someone unseen below us. Some held a variety of weapons that glowed and hummed with unknown power, while others held bare arms upraised with fingers in the signs of magic, their hands surrounded by a strange glowing light. But they still backed away. The one on the floor writhed in agony.

"Khan!" a voice that could only be Doom bellowed from below, echoing in the chamber. "I tire of wasting energies on your minions! Show yourself wizard, lest I take what is mine and sunder your magical palace with one blow!"

I hadn't noticed the crow, which had been perched at the top of the golden statue. It flew down now and landed with a little hop on the dais between the two fire basins. Then where the crow had stood, there was a small man in plain black robes with long black hair and a wispy little beard. He held his hands out in imitation of the statue behind him, and as one his disciples fell to their knees in supplication, bowing their heads. He put his hands together and bowed too. Only Doom was left standing erect and unimpressed before him. Khan eyed Doom with squinty eyed calmness.

"Welcome, Doctor Doom," he said. "Or are you just Doom, now?"

"Khan," Doom spat the name with undisguised contempt.

Khan bowed. "You honor us with your presence," he said calmly, ignoring the scorn in Doom's voice.

"Honor you?" Doom replied coolly. "How careless of me. You've obviously mistaken me for someone who is impressed by these juvenile theatrics! Your disciples and their puny magic tricks are an insult to one who has faced Mephisto's realm! They were beginning to annoy me!" Doom cruelly kicked the fallen disciple before him, who scrambled painfully to his feet to join his brothers.

"Had we anticipated your arrival, we would have prepared a more suitable welcome," Khan answered slyly. "As it is, welcome to my humble country."

"Do what you will in your insignificant little kingdom, Khan," Doom growled. "But you are holding my countrymen against their will. Release them, or suffer retribution!"

"Insignificant, only in the narrow scope of one who has not seen," Khan intoned solemnly. "For the world is connected by the sky and the earth, and soon all will be of one mind, of one spirit. We have seen the light, and the truth has set us free!"

"Praise Khan!" the disciples chanted as one.

Khan smiled and looked back to Doom. "This boy is crucial to our final transformation," he said. "His power is the crux that will deliver us into the omniverse, so that the whole world will hear our message and feel our spirit. Once I have harnessed his emergent energies, there will no longer be barriers to my wisdom and vision!"

"The boy does not seem to share your mad vision, Khan," Doom taunted slyly. "Why not set him free and see what he chooses."

Khan glowered menacingly at Doom. "The boy, like all children, is lacking in the essential mental discipline!" he hissed with anger. "Once he has accepted me as his one true father, then he will willingly follow." He paced slowly up to Doom, calm again, with head bowed. He was only half the height of that towering armored king, but he seemed undeterred by the physical mismatch. "You could join us, Doom, become one of us. You have seen that this world needs one vision. I have the means to make it happen. It is already happening, behold!"

One of the walls of the temple transformed from stone into a red shimmering cloth, which magically parted like a curtain, revealing an enormous throbbing machine behind it, stretching from floor to far beyond the ceiling. The machine glowed from within with a greenish cast, and unshielded now, I could feel its effect on me, making my head throb.

"The Hypno Generator," Khan explained proudly. "For years I have distributed computer chips to markets throughout the world. Subtle suggestions within the chips have turned many of my followers to leave behind their mediocre lives and join us here. Each year, our numbers grow larger, and more chips are distributed throughout the world. When my master plan is complete, the magic that surrounds this temple will extend to amplifiers built by my followers in every house of power on the face of the planet. The light will shine before the world, and they will know the way."

"Praise Khan!" his disciples shouted.

"You, Doom, with your latent magical aptitude, would be a natural leader for our revolution. Join us, leave behind your cold empty technology. Together, we can guide the world to a new prosperity!"

Doom grabbed the smaller man by the collar and lifted him from the ground. "I am not one of your New Age acolytes here to stare into crystals and chant around fires," he hissed. "And I couldn't care less for your dreams of conquest. I knew Genghis Khan, and you are a poor facsimile that takes his name and struts like a peacock in this abysmal corner of the world. How dare you insult me with such an offer! It is you who should be begging to join me!"

Khan raised his hands in supplication. "I meant no harm," he pleaded. "It is not everyday that a man of your sphere of influence visits my realm."

Doom lowered Khan to the ground. "Release Vox, and I will reconsider destroying your temple."

"But it is not Vox that you came for, is it?" Khan stated slyly. "I know what you want, Doom," he whispered quietly. "Take it. Take it from the boy. I will not stop you." Doom looked to the boy in the cage. As one, the disciples backed away, forming a clear path between Doom and the gilded cage.

Khan stepped slowly back to his temple. "I am not an unreasonable man," he said slowly. "All I ask is that you place your faith in me, that my vision of a world united be given a chance. You can see for yourself that we are happy, we are prosperous. Is that such a small thing to ask? Faith?"

"Praise be to Khan!" the disciples chanted.

Doom ignored him as he walked towards the cage. The boy's features brightened noticeably as Doom approached, and I leaned closer over the balcony to get a better look.

"Careful!" Andrei whispered.

"Hold!" Khan shouted and turned in our direction. "Spies!" he announced, pointing to the gallery where we hid. The acolytes rushed forward, and then the balcony disappeared beneath us! We fell, landing with a thump on the ground, and were instantly surrounded by his followers. One of them put a heavy foot on Andrei's back, keeping the big man pinned to the ground. Another placed what looked like a laser rifle against my head.

Doom spared us a glance, but said nothing. He stood by the golden cage, and I saw Vox reach out to him through the bars. Then Doom turned his back to us, and something passed between them, but if they spoke I could not hear it. When Doom turned back to us, he held a silver ring gently in his fingers. It had a crystal in the center, which pulsated with a blue light unlike any I had seen before. He stared at it, as if dumbstruck for a moment.

He cleared his throat, and his voice was heavy with emotion when he announced, "This ring once belonged to my mother," he said quietly. "She was a witch of great power."

"The ring means nothing to me," Khan admitted. "Take it, and you may go. But you must leave the boy."

Doom stared at him with something akin to uncertainty, if that was even possible. He removed his glove and placed the ring on his finger. He replaced his glove solemnly, sparing a glance at the exposed Hypno machine and then back to Andrei and me. "And what of them?" he asked.

"They have violated my inner sanctum," Khan announced. "They must be punished. But what do you care of them? They are but pawns."

"If your plan succeeds, we will meet again, Khan," Doom announced calmly.

"I will have tea prepared," Khan said, bowing, with a slight smile.

Doom turned away and walked towards the exit, his green cloak trailing behind him. I couldn't believe it! He was actually leaving us here!

Andrei shouted, "Doom! You snake! Don't leave Vox to this madman!"

But Doom hadn't gone three steps when the true snake revealed himself. From the folds of his tattered black cloak, Khan produced an ancient hand gun with a long barrel, and aimed it at Doom's back. Before I could shout, "Look out!" he had pumped three rounds into Doom's back. I saw the bullets rip a hole in his chest. I saw Doom's legs buckle and heard the crash of his armor as he fell to his knees in the center of the temple. My head was throbbing from the explosive report of that gun. Doom was holding his chest, desperately trying to stand as blood was leaking out of his chest and gathering in a crimson pool on the stone floor. Khan was laughing. And the disciples stood above us with weapons in our faces. I reached for Doom, my heart suddenly sick and sad, but they would not let me go to him. I popped the knife from my arm. I wasn't going to go like this, shot down like a dog! Through my tears I steeled my resolve, and I was ready to take a few of them with me when I heard Khan shouting.

"Nooo!" came the frenzied China-man's cry, and I looked to see Vox. Vox was outside of his golden cage somehow, floating a few feet above the floor. The little boy was aiming something, a small weapon it looked like, at the Hypno Generator. Before anyone could stop him, a powerful beam from the weapon slammed into the machine. The temple rocked with the force of the impact, and tiny explosions began branching out through the machine. Then, stuff started to happen too fast for me to keep track of. Suddenly Doom was standing above Khan at the center of the temple. Doom struck down the old wizard with a mighty fist, leaving him crumpled at the base of his altar. Then the acolytes that had surrounded us, suddenly faded away. Andrei stood, and quickly ran for Vox, picking up the boy and racing for the exit. The explosions of the machine rocked the temple, sending chunks of debris crashing down on us. Doom jerked me to my feet, and I stared in wonder at his chest, there was no sign of a wound there. Without an explanation, he shoved me towards the door of the temple.

I looked back. "What about Khan . . .?" The last thing I saw was the wizard, screaming in terror as his great golden statue toppled over on him. Then we were running out into the sunlight, normal sunlight, blue sky and white clouds. I breathed a momentary sigh of relief and recognition, and then ran down normal stairs leading away from an ordinary looking stone temple. Behind us explosions shook the stone columns and the entire structure collapsed in a heap of ancient stone and dust.

I stood outside the temple, cold, tired, and thoroughly amazed. Doom looked back briefly, as did Andrei and Vox. Then Doom turned and walked unmolested through a crowd of people who had gathered at the gate, staring in wonderment at a temple that was no longer the center of light in their city.

"That wasn't the last time I saw Doom. But after that, things were pretty routine in comparison. Andrei and Vox went their own way; they were going to try to find the Zefiro. Doom dropped me off in Rome, and pretty much left me on my own. I guess I didn't meet his requirements. Perhaps seeing me on my knees in the temple with no one guarding me damaged my qualifications. I still hadn't sorted out which parts were real, and which were Khan's clever illusions. Doom didn't talk much about it. He went off to, well, wherever he wanted to go, I guess. I don't think the world has seen the last of Doom. I made my way back to the states, resigned from SHIELD, and got a job in the city as a security specialist. Don't know what happened to Khan's city after we left. I guess that once the drugs and the hypnotism wore off, there were a bunch of people left to wonder about what to make of their lives."

"Funny thing is, Khan's plan might have worked too if he hadn't had his original design engineering team shot when they began to challenge his world view. Seems that Khan was a passable magician, but not much of a computer designer. His original team was top bracket people, but once they were gone, he couldn't maintain the same kind of quality. Seems that all of the chips being shipped out of his compound for the past six months had some major flaws and were failing QC checks at end users all around the world. Retailers and manufacturers were already starting to pull the Optimum chip off of the market. I hear there's still a few of them around in some of the older equipment though, and every now and then someone treks up to a deserted city on a plateau in the Karakorum Mountains, looking for Khan to show them the way. But they never find anyone there."

THE END.

"_**Though this be madness, yet there is method in't."**_

_**From Hamlet, by William Shakespeare.**_

DS

10/25/97

Next: AFRICA! And 'dem bones' ! And secrets to be revealed about Doom's mysterious past!

Be there or miss out on some really cool scenery as Doom 2099 goes on safari!


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